


time immemorial

by erzi



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 16:11:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18832096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erzi/pseuds/erzi
Summary: "Careful!" Sorey says, voice echoing off the cave's walls, as he stretches his hand out to Mikleo wary at the top of the cave."Yes," Mikleo replies, taking Sorey's hand anyway, a steady force guiding him down. "I'm not you, falling into caves." He lands with ease but doesn't let go of Sorey.





	time immemorial

"Careful!" Sorey says, voice echoing off the cave's walls, as he stretches his hand out to Mikleo wary at the top of the cave.

"Yes," Mikleo replies, taking Sorey's hand anyway, a steady force guiding him down. "I'm not you, falling into caves." He lands with ease but doesn't let go of Sorey.

Sorey laughs, being the one to break away to bashfully touch the thin scar on his chin, gained when he'd fallen in here. "But this is interesting, right?" He holds a torch in one hand while the other motions grandly to the underground river as green as the moss on the slick walls. "So, shall we?"

Mikleo glances at Sorey's scar and crosses his arms. "I'm not going to do any artes in a cave I don't know. What if I hit something, rocks fell, and we got trapped? Who'd come after you when I'd be stuck here, too?"

"That's not what I meant! I meant if you wanted to keep walking. This cave looks really old. That's why I brought you here, to go exploring."

"Oh." He uncrosses his arms. They feel heavy and useless simply hanging off his sides, so he chooses to cup his elbow. "Well, that's okay."

"Sheesh, Mikleo." Sorey takes Mikleo's hand from his elbow and leads them on to trace the river's backward path into the dark. "I'm not that irresponsible."

Their fingers aren't linked; Sorey clasps Mikleo's hand loosely, amiably. He even hums something tuneless to himself as he surveys their surroundings.

Mikleo would like to admire it all too, but he can't bring himself to focus on anything that's not Sorey's gloved hand around his. Its leather is cool and supple, wrinkled by tiny lines from their long use. It's not the warmth, so natural to Sorey, that he'd expected.

 _I wish he'd used his other hand_ , Mikleo thinks, looking at it curled around the wood of the torch. That glove is fingerless.

They slowly walk over stone smoothed by the river over its life. On particularly slippery steps, Mikleo grips Sorey's hand just as his heart constricts. Sorey doesn't say anything, but he does turn his head to smile at Mikleo. He's more likely to trip from that smile than precarious footing.

"It gets narrow ahead," Sorey says. "We can only walk in one line. But then the path widens again and there are more caves."

"Sounds like you know this place well already. Is there anything left to explore?"

"Yeah! The other caves. I wasn't gonna do everything by myself." That smile again. "What fun would it be without you there?"

Mikleo takes a small breath in as he opens his mouth, tongue poised to speak. But nothing comes out and he closes his mouth, looking left at the river, mirror-still where the torchlight pools above it.

There is a sudden absence of Sorey's gentle pressure against his hand. Sorey has walked in front of Mikleo one mindful step at a time here where they cannot walk alongside each other. He's further ahead than Mikleo would have thought, so Mikleo speeds up, though not entirely careless; he keeps a hand to the cave wall at his right, finding crooks within it to hold on to should he fall.

Sorey stops and Mikleo catches up, at his side again. They've come to where the river splits, forming more caves at every branch.

Sorey methodically sweeps the air with his torch, casting the cave alight a part at a time. In the silence crackled only by the torch's flame, the sheer size of it awes them. The light doesn't reach the top of the cave; deep black slopes high above them, mocking their feeble attempts to let their fire guide them. The entrances to the other caves are uneven voids of their own. And on a wall there seems to be something small and sharply carved.

"Is that writing?" Mikleo wonders out loud.

"What?! Where?"

Mikleo points. They head to it, leaping over the tributaries where they cut through the rock beneath their feet.

"That _is_ writing," Sorey confirms, hand brushing the angular, chiseled symbols. "Good eye, Mikleo! I was the one who found this place but didn't see this. What did I tell you? You're amazing to be with."

"It's not in any alphabet I recognize, though," Mikeo says despite the heat in the tips of his ears.

"Me either." Sorey turns to him, grinning. "But it makes it even better! What if we're the first to find this language? What if _we_ get be in a book?!"

The prospect of his and Sorey's names immortalized on paper for an archaeological discovery brings a smile to Mikleo's face.

"I mean, this is definitely writing. Some symbols repeat," Sorey continues, bending to read the rest of the passage. "I wonder how old this is?"

"I'd go as far as to say 'very.'"

Sorey stands up, nudging him playfully with his elbow.

"I'm so excited about this!" Sorey says. "But also, maybe we just haven't read enough books to know this has been written about. Do you have any paper on you? We can copy this down and ask Gramps."

Mikleo shakes his head. "No, but we can just memorize the symbols."

Sorey turns back to the writing. "Yeah. I really wish we could determine its age."

"It's far above the water's level, so I don't think the river would have eroded it much, and so it could be older than it looks. That's all I can guess."

"I agree." The corner of his lip turns up sadly. "Whoever did this might be dead now, but their message lives on."

Mikleo draws his lips together to a white line. He looks toward the river. How long has _it_ been here, alone and lifeless in the dark? How long since someone besides them came along, bringing light and sound to these ancient hollows?

"That's what I like about history. We come and go but our ideas- Mikleo?"

He blinks up to Sorey, whose face is creased in concern. "Hmm? What?"

"You look upset. What's wrong?"

"I'm not upset."

"You made your hands into fists as you said that."

He had.

He hastily flattens the front of his perfectly flat shirt, eyes turning aside. "I... was reminded."

"Of?"

Mikleo's face sets and his voice grows small. "I'm going to outlive you."

"Oh." Sorey's expression falls. He lowers his arm carrying the torch, and the stony ground is awash in light. "Not what I was expecting to hear, but... I get it."

Mikleo looks at Sorey, mouth twisted down, chest uncomfortably tight. "No you don't, Sorey. Not really. You can _think_ about how I'm going to live long past you, but you can't _know_ it. Humans have no way of knowing what being close to eternity means. They want to, but I- there's nothing worse than it, Sorey. What am I going to do when you're gone?"

For a moment, Sorey doesn't move, and neither does Mikleo. Only the torchlight flickers, changing the way the shadows dance. Then Sorey places the torch sideways on a crevice, the light sapped from between them to fall behind them. And he takes the few steps he needs to get to Mikleo to wrap his arms around him.

"I wish I could say that that's not gonna happen for a very long time," he murmurs, mouth just past Mikleo's ear, "but I have no way of knowing. What I do know is that everything ends."

Mikleo hugs him back, pressing Sorey to him like it'll keep him from leaving. "I don't want it to."

"Neither do I. But it will."

Mikleo digs his chin onto Sorey's shoulder. "How can you be so calm about it?" he asks, a storm gathering in the back of his throat.

"Because instead of thinking about the end, I think about everything before it." He pulls back but keeps close to Mikleo, his hand going up to his cheek, and Mikleo can feel Sorey's warmth from each of his gloveless fingers; he can feel that radiance leave tiny trails as Sorey strokes his cheek. "I think about how we met. We could have been born at any time, or in different places, but we weren't. We were born exactly when we needed to so we could be in each other's lives. I can't think of anything better than that."

Mikleo swallows with difficulty, not trusting himself to speak.

"As long as you don't forget about me," Sorey says, "a little part of me will always be alive."

"Stupid," Mikleo croaks, eyes squeezed shut to keep tears away, yet finding behind his lids a glimmer of sorrowful acceptance.

"Aw. You think so?"

Steady breath in. He opens his eyes, though their wetness has stayed. "I will never forget you, stupid."

Sorey thumbs away his welled-up tears. There's something doleful in his smile, but its sweetness is undeniable. For now, it is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> i'll have u know i once thought about how long mikleo waited for sorey while at work and i only cried for 10 minutes


End file.
